(Newser)
–
Taking southwestern Pennsylvania's 18th District was a cakewalk for Donald Trump: He snagged the district by 20 percentage points, reports CNBC. It was similarly a breeze for former GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, who won in 2014 and 2016 without even facing a Democratic challenger. But reports that Murphy urged his lover to abort her child brings us to where we are Tuesday: A special election is being held for his seat, and Republican state Rep. Rick Saccone, who faces Democrat Conor Lamb, is anything but a shoo-in. NPR reports that since Trump took office, 39 state legislative seats have turned blue. Will this be No. 40? Polls close at 8pm in the district, which encompasses many Pittsburgh suburbs; here's what you need to know:

Temporary: CNBC points out that the "practical effect on Congress" of the election "may be small." That's because it's temporary: Thanks to a new state congressional map, come November neither man will even live in the 18th: Lamb would be running in a new 17th District, Saccone in a redrawn 14th District. So it's more about bragging rights and momentum. And going into Tuesday, Lamb may have it, with a Monmouth University poll out Monday suggesting Lamb was ahead 51% to 45%, though that's based on a projected strong Democratic turnout.

Seen on news programs this morning, GOP is describing the area as heavy Democratic, Trump carried it by 20 points but they are already looking for excuses in case they lose to Democrats.

BlueFalconL21

Mar 13, 2018 4:08 PM CDT

'The world is watching'! Hardly. No big deal either way.

julianpenrod

Mar 13, 2018 2:04 PM CDT

Anyone who votes for Conor Lamb has to remind themselves what they are asking for. Hillary Clinton called an entire segment of the population “deplorable” if they refused to accept the agendas Democrats promote solely to buy votes from groups. In power, the Democrats would again demand that whites take the blame for all blacks' failings and faults. Blacks would be believed in anything they say and white would be declared to hate everybody else in the world. The Democrats would demand that the calculated white hating “explanation” for the Civil War be accepted and be used to bludgeon whites. Southerners didn't fight for the South because they wanted to keep slavery! The overwhelming majority of Southerners didn't own slaves, they even resented it since it took jobs away from them. The attack on Ft. Sumter was as the result of the provocative move by the North of stationing a Northern garrison there. The war was to try to assure Constitutional rights to states to cobble treaties and trade deals with other nations. The Confederate flag represents this principle. Civil War personages also represented protecting states' rights and maintaining respect for the South. The action to remove them was nothing more than a show of hate for whites. Like the museum intended to honor those who were lynched. Like the blacks erecting a statue of Martin Luther King in Washington deliberately and contemptuously taller than all the other statues there. Democrats will continue to call illegal aliens legal immigrants and do what they can to bring as many in as possible to steal jobs from native born Americans and bust the unions. The Democrats will declare that drug addiction is the only way to live. The Democrats will insist again that sex deviances are necessarily normal. The Democrats will define women with the depraved indifference to kill life they, themselves, gave rise to just to narcissistically avoid a few months of inconvenience. With less Republican representation, it can be said, the Democrats could begin their practice of arranging their bought-and-paid-for “press” to hide the sexual misconduct activities of Democratic Party friends, allowing them to ruin more lives. The Democrats are nothing but a sleazy power mongering fraud, intended only to make the rich richer. Their tactic involves largely just buying votes. To accomplish this, they promise unconstitutional government enfranchisement of groups' depraved whims. Their propaganda is just doggerel to pretend that the connived agendas they promote to buy votes from groups are necessarily “decent”.